At this exact time, one year ago, I was on my third martini of the night. I was sitting at a quiet hotel bar reading a book after an equally quiet dinner on my own. Martini’s weren’t my normal drink but they went well with the oysters I ate earlier. I then went up to my room and fell asleep. It wasn’t a wild night. I didn’t have a hangover the next morning. In fact, I got up on time, got dressed and headed out to two work events and a team lunch before getting on the road and driving home. It was a productive day, and one that I have pictures of. I’m smiling with my coworkers, hard hat firmly in place, enthusiasm for the days events painted on my face. It was a good day.

I explain all of this because it wasn’t a dramatic turn of events that caused me to make one decision that would change my life. It wasn’t a rock bottom moment or a stark realization of failure or guilt or misery. It was just a regular day. I was on the road headed home to my husband and my two children, a fur baby who was no doubt digging up my latest efforts to correct his assault of our backyard, and an evening of dinner, bath time, stories, and bed.

Except, as I rounded a wide sweeping corner and the highway took me further south and closer to home, I looked out at the trees I was passing and breathed in the idea that I wouldn’t have a drink that night. I could do that. Just one breath, one decision, a small one.

I couldn’t have known that I would keep making that small decision everyday until a month later when I looked at my husband and told him I was done with drinking for good. I couldn’t have known that I would discover just how much control I had given up over the years. I had let not only alcohol, but other people and most especially, false and limiting beliefs about myself, take control. I couldn’t have known that when I made that decision, what I was doing was grabbing on ever so slightly to the threads of my life that had become unraveled and frayed, and I started pulling them back together.Over the next year, I found my voice. I stopped apologizing for who I was, who I had always been. I stopped shrinking myself in the hopes that it would be pleasing to others and I started standing in my truth.

That day on the highway, I breathed in the idea that I had control. I breathed in the idea that I was worth fighting for. I breathed in the idea that I was powerful, strong, fierce, and worthy.That was the day I decided to be a badass.